Pa. officials take stand to defend voter ID law

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Officials from Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration are the first witnesses to testify as the state opened its case in a trial of Pennsylvania’s voter identification law.

Kelly O’Donnell, operations and management director at the Department of Aging, conceded Wednesday under questioning by the plaintiffs’ attorneys that she put out some erroneous information about the mandatory photo ID requirement after its March 2012 approval.

O’Donnell said she erred in telling a local senior center last year that voters could get the IDs from any PennDOT photo center, when most people needed to go to one of the fewer PennDOT licensing centers.

Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley said the trial is behind schedule and urged both sides to pick up the pace.